i may be early for alot of other parts of the world, but our growing season is pretty long and we are already getting killed by an overabundance of beans, zucchini, yellow squash, (my beets are probably ready to harvest but i am afraid to look lolz!) and i have had 2 cherry tomatoes turn ripe.

so. here it comes!!!!! the dreaded pressure canner haha

i put up 8 jars of pickled green beans last week - 2 qts, 6 pints (would've been 3 qts but one of my jars blew out - IN THE CANNER! ugh. start over.......)

anyways, i was wanting to see what y'all are canning - aanybody got a better green bean recipe? not sure how these are going to be but i'm waiting a few weeks for them to 'mellow'

also, did 3 day half-sours like the kind you get in nyc jewish/polish deli - they turned out *awesome* - i thought i would need all kinds of special crocks or whatnot, but i just used a food grade bucket my kid got for me at the restaurant she works at (it had coleslaw in it so, gluten-free, just washed it out and GO lolz)

1

arlene

misdiagnosed for 25 years!
just as i was getting my affairs in order to die of malnutrition...
gluten free 7/2010
blood test negative
celiac confirmed by endoscopy 9/2010

I grew up spending the entire summer and fall in the kitchen canning. And part of the winter too when we were still butchering our own deer and cows and pigs.

I will say that there is nothing in the entire world that tastes like homemade venison mincemeat. It is positively one of the most divine things one can ever eat.

In the most recent years we have mostly canned pickles because that is what my husband will eat a ton of, and plenty of jams and jellies. My favorite was always strawberry banana jam. Cursed bananas and strawberries hate me now. It still is amazingly good though and I should probably make up some jars with my frozen strawberries to have for Christmas gifts. I like to do the little teeny 4 oz jars for those. Since we did so many pickles last year and then I couldn't eat them any more I don't think we'll do quite so many this year. We haven't been able to even give them away enough to use them all up in a year. If I go count up what is left of our pickles I think maybe we'll stick with only doing 30 or 40 pints this year.

What I think I do want to do for sure is corn. Growing up that was always our biggest day of the year. We would just freeze half and can half of it. I just need to get one of those slicer thinger-mabobs that you use to get the corn off the cob. Or... I suppose a mandolin would work for that. Maybe I can finally talk my husband into one if its for corn!

I won't have enough of my own fresh tomatoes or peppers to can them, but I think this year I will make salsa for the first time as long as I tolerate tomatoes ok and can that. I'll probably do that in small jars too since I'm the only one who will eat it.

I may do some apple pie filling this year too. My husband won't eat applesauce and frankly I don't like it from a jar or can, I only like it fresh so there isn't a point to making any and canning it. Maybe apple butter. Too many apples to know what to do with around here. I'll probably buy a few bushels of pears and make spiced pears. *swoon*

With a pressure canner, can you can things like veggies without adding acid or anything else? How hard is it to do? My freezer is getting way too full. I think I need to start doing some canning as well as dehydrating.

With a pressure canner, can you can things like veggies without adding acid or anything else? How hard is it to do? My freezer is getting way too full. I think I need to start doing some canning as well as dehydrating.

With a pressure canner, can you can things like veggies without adding acid or anything else? How hard is it to do? My freezer is getting way too full. I think I need to start doing some canning as well as dehydrating.

get the 'ball blue book' aka the bible of canning lolz - mine is dog eared (and probably smells like vinegar haha) it has step by step and pretty foolproof recipes. i started out there and now i experiment with all kinds of stuff. some of the recipes on the internet are pretty good, some give 'bad' canning advice. i watched a cooking demonstration on a gardening show where they half-submerged jars of tomatoes in a pot of water to seal the jars - tomatoes are low acid and should be pressure canned! the ball bible has safe techniques and will prevent botulism <can kill ya.

1

arlene

misdiagnosed for 25 years!
just as i was getting my affairs in order to die of malnutrition...
gluten free 7/2010
blood test negative
celiac confirmed by endoscopy 9/2010

well, it's supposed to rain here until friday (yay) so all our outdoor activities are a bust! except blackberry picking; we can do that rain or shine (so long as it's not thunder & lightning) we have about a half acre covered in wild blackberries and we have a thingy that will remove the seeds and leave just the juice and pulp, so i will be 'jamming' at some point in the near future if i crank up the radio i can jam while i jam yuk yuk

0

arlene

misdiagnosed for 25 years!
just as i was getting my affairs in order to die of malnutrition...
gluten free 7/2010
blood test negative
celiac confirmed by endoscopy 9/2010